


auribus teneo lupum

by AlexiaBlackbriar13



Series: ubi amor, ibi dolor [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Cutting, Depression, Discovery of Self-Harm, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 1, Self-Harm, discussion of suicide, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:34:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9401933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaBlackbriar13/pseuds/AlexiaBlackbriar13
Summary: Set in a slightly canon-divergent S1. The five times Oliver is caught self-harming and the one time he isn’t.1: The Queen Family





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "auribus teneo lupum" - "I hold a wolf by the ears". A common ancient proverb, indicating that one is in a dangerous situation where both holding on and letting go could be deadly.
> 
>  
> 
> I wrote this sort series a year ago when I was in a bad headspace and needed to express my thoughts through words. I'm only posting it now because I'm in a much better place and that I think by publishing it, I'm releasing some of the demons I've been keeping locked away.
> 
> Trigger Warnings in the tags.

* * *

It had initially been a mistake on his part. Oliver was meant to head home to join his family for dinner at eight, but he got caught up in researching Reese Hickson, another rich criminal elitist on his father’s list, and discovering that he’d stolen ten million dollars by overcharging compound interest on Starling City citizens’ bank accounts. But his fatal error in timing meant that by the time he arrived home, it was nearing ten.

Moira and Walter had just sent him disapproving looks while shaking their heads, clearly disappointed, but Thea had been furious. According to her, he wasn’t making any effort whatsoever to spend any time with them since he had returned. And, in all fairness, it was true that Oliver hadn’t spent much time with his family.

They all had weighted expectations of his behaviour and feelings, which were suffocating him. Moira and Thea expected him to be all happy and sensible and responsible now, unaffected by his five years away on his own. They expected him to be social and want to parade around as a Queen in the public eye again.

But Oliver was drowning. He had barely adjusted. He was on the edge of mental breakdown when he arrived home that evening, exhausted, so when Thea started yelling at him, he could do nothing but flinch and take it. Her words had cut like knives through his already scarred body and left gaping wounds in his stability.

_“You say you missed us, that we were with you the whole time you were away, but you don’t even care about us now you’re back. You keep secrets, you lie, I’m sick of it, Ollie.”_

_“You might as well have never come back from that island. You never talk about that place, but you make it very clear to us that you’d rather be back there than be here with us.”_

_“You don’t appreciate us at all. Dad would have. It would have been better if you died in that storm and Dad came home instead.”_

And then, when the argument had reached its climax, Thea had screamed angrily, _“I wish you had died or stayed on that island! Our lives were better without you!”_

To say that he brushed Thea’s bold statements off would be lying. He took every single one of them to heart. He knew logically that it had only been the heat of the fight that had caused Thea to shout those things at him, but just the fact that she had said them at all told him that they were underlying accusations, that she just couldn’t keep bottled up anymore, bubbling to the surface. And his mother and stepfather's’ reactions… they had looked at him as if he was a stranger they didn’t even recognise; they had looked at him as if they agreed with what Thea was saying. Oliver knew that Laurel did - she had practically said the same words to him the first time she had seen him when he arrived back.

That was how Oliver found himself sitting on the floor in the corner of his bedroom, leaning against the wall with his knees pulled up to his chest in frigid silence with one of his many combat knives in his hand, darkness surrounding him with the only movement in the room being the billowing, flapping curtains that were caught in the night’s cold breeze.

The archer inhaled sharply as he ran the knife blade sideways across his wrist lightly, barely breaking the skin but beads of crimson blood appearing. He closed his eyes and revelled in the pain.

The pain was real, kept him grounded, in control. It allowed all other things, especially Thea’s hurtful screams, to fade from his mind as his wrist throbbed.

And once that pain had faded, and the cut had numbed, he wiped the blood away with a wet towel and cut another line, just below it, gasping as the pain once again anchored him to reality. He was in control unlike he hadn’t been during the fight.

He told himself that it wasn’t self-harming, because the cutting was necessary. He needed the pain in order to stabilise his mind, stop himself from thinking about the judgement of his loved ones and halt the flashbacks and agonising memories from those five years away. Pain gave him utter control over himself and his mind. He wasn’t cutting deep enough to cause himself to bleed out, and he knew that if he kept the cuts clean, in a few days they would be scabbed over, and in a week they would have sealed up.

A memory of Billy Wintergreen tearing into his chest flashed through his mind, triggered by the initial first cut and he gritted his teeth, tipping his head back so it rested against the wall, as he made another cut. He had to fight through it. Blood dripped onto the wet towel below his wrist steadily.

Perhaps it was the blood loss or the fact he was so engrossed in the pain that he didn’t notice his bedroom door being knocked on, but by the time he lifted his head and paid attention to his surroundings like he usually did, it was too late.

There was a terrified gasp of, “Oliver, _no!_ ” and then his mother’s hands were framing his face, her eyes filled with tears and Walter was yanking the bloodied knife from his hand, looking shocked. Thea had fallen, trembling, to her knees in the doorway and let out a cry of horror and distress.

“I’ll get the first aid kit,” Walter said quickly, hiding his shaking hands as he rushed out the room to grab the kit from downstairs, where it was located in one of the lobby cupboards.

“There’s no need,” Oliver muttered, but Walter had already left the room. The archer huffed and tilted his head back, closing his eyes as his vision swam due to the blood loss. “S’really not a big deal…”

Moira was pressing the wet towel onto the cuts, causing little tendrils of pain to flare across his wrist, and like her husband, her hands were shaking. “Yes, it is, Oliver,” she snapped, covering up her fear with anger. “This is a very big deal.”

“You’re trying to commit suicide,” Thea whispered, her voice weak. She crawled forwards from where she had been kneeling in the doorway so she was in front of her brother along with her mother, and she reached forwards to keep pressure down on the cuts as well, so Moira could jump up quickly and grab a small throw pillow for Oliver to brace his head against instead of the hard wall. “You’re trying to die, when we just got you back from the dead.”

She was crying. Oliver hated it when she cried. He opened his eyes slightly so they were slitted and gazed at her, reaching out with his free hand, the one that had been doing the cutting, to grip her own as he murmured, “I thought that was what you wanted… considering you said you wished I had…”

“No, Oliver, no!” she cried, weeping and putting her head on his shoulder, shivers wracking her form. “Never, Oliver! I love you, I don’t want you to die. You’re my brother and I love you, okay, I don’t want you to die, I never wanted you to die. I was just angry, I didn’t mean it.”

He swallowed and rested his cheek on the side of her head, against her hair. “Wasn’t trying to die,” he admitted. “Needed the pain. Pain keeps me here. Pain keeps me off the island.”

“You never have to go back there,” Moira whispered tearfully, her eyes lowered and watching little spots of blood stain the wet towel from his wrist. “You’re home, sweetheart and you never have to suffer like you did there again.”

“Yes, I do,” Oliver muttered. “Deserve to suffer. I’m a horrible person.”

“That, I find hard to believe,” Walter answered, appearing in the doorway and coming over, stumbling slightly in the darkness of the room, only being able to see by the light coming in from the hallway. He set the first aid kit down by Moira’s leg and he grasped Oliver’s free shoulder, the one Thea wasn’t leaning on and he said sincerely, “We will always be here for you, son. You don’t have to be alone anymore, we’ll always support you. And you don’t have to self-harm, Oliver. We can get you help if you need it, if you want it, but you don’t have to suffer. You don’t deserve pain, Oliver.”

His vision was going a little fuzzy as he blinked at his stepfather and choked out, “You don’t understand. There were things I had to do there - in order to survive that -” He swallowed, his tongue going numb. He couldn’t tell them. He had killed, he had tortured, he had spilt blood, and knowing that about him would destroy his family. “Thea was right; it would have been better if I had died and Dad hadn’t. All I’ve done since I’ve been back is cause you pain, and misery, and pushed you all away.”

“You don’t have to push us away, Oliver,” Moira told him, her voice gentle as she moved around to his other side and softly. “We understand why you have been, we know it must be difficult re-adjusting, coming back into civilian life after five years in the wilderness but we’re here for you, sweetheart. Whatever you did there, whatever you’ve done, that doesn’t matter to us.” With a sob, she said, “We love you, Oliver. Don’t ever forget that.”

Exhausted, Oliver just nodded, muttering, “I know, Mom, I know.”

“I appreciate that this is a massive breach of privacy, Oliver,” Walter said, kneeling before him as the Brit fished out antiseptic wipes, gauze and bandages from the first aid kit, “But we’re going to need to search your room.”

Oliver’s heart sank. He had stashes of weapons hidden all around his room - combat knives, flechettes, he even had a handgun and several clips of rounds hidden somewhere. “You can’t do that, Walter,” he replied, his voice low.

“Why not, Oliver?” Walter said sadly. “Because I’m not going to like what I find?”

“You don’t understand,” Oliver tried.

“I’m beginning to realise I don’t understand you at all, son,” Walter responded, his expression sombre and upset. “But we’re searching the room and removing any weapons for your own safety.”

“Safety is the precise reason I need them in here in the first place.”

“What do you mean by that?” Moira questioned, her eyes searching his face worriedly, and when he didn’t reply, not wanting to admit his insecurities, she prompted gently, “Oliver? If you don’t explain, we can’t understand.”

“I think I know why,” Thea sniffed, suddenly speaking and lifting her head from her brother’s shoulder, wiping her tears off her cheeks. “On the island you had to fight people to survive, didn’t you? Your scars aren’t self-inflicted, I can tell that much, and they look really deep and done by a knife so I guessed pretty early on that when you were there you were -” She swallowed, looking sick. “That you were tortured there. Having weapons on you all the time made you feel safe - makes you feel safe.” She rubbed at her eyes. “That’s why you carry a switchblade around with you all the time, why when you use a knife at dinner, your hands mould to it like a weapon.”

“You noticed all of that?” Walter looked surprised, and maybe a little proud, of his stepdaughter. When Thea nodded, he turned to Oliver and questioned gently, “Is that true?”

He couldn’t answer. Didn’t want to answer. He closed his eyes again and tilted his head away, a tremor running through his body, and that seemed to act as a response for them, because Moira gave a muffled sob and buried her head in his short hair. His mother and sister remained on the floor next to him while Walter rose and silently began checking all the drawers and cupboards around the room. Oliver flinched every time Walter found a hidden weapon, and after ten minutes or so of searching, Walter came back with two more combat blades, a Swiss army knife, a handgun and two clips of bullets. He looked immensely upset as he removed them from the room, and Oliver could tell the man wanted to comment, but Walter remained silent as he quietly took the weapons away.

His family stayed with him for the rest of the night, seated on the floor with him, almost guarding him, whispering reassurances and words of comfort. His mother seemed to realise that the fact that his weapons were gone distressed him greatly because she hugged him tightly to her until his shaking subsided.

They cleaned and wrapped the cuts and when morning came, they all came to an unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t discuss what had happened anymore that day, and they would lay it to rest. But his mother made it very clear that in the near future, they would be talking about his self-destructive tendencies, and all three of them would be keeping an eye on him.

Oliver, though, wouldn’t let it go. Now they had taken away his knives and weapons, he would just have to find a new way to find pain to ground himself to reality.

* * *


	2. Part 2 Link

Part 2: [veritatem fratribus testari](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9648680) \- Tommy Merlyn

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Please leave kudos and comment.


End file.
